Malaysian Christians fight for the right to pray to Allah
Malaysian Christians have long referred to Jesus as the "son of Allah." Their government, it seems, has a problem with that: Malaysian Muslim activists and officials and they see using the word Allah in Christian publications including bibles as attempts to proselytize. Those concerns led to the ban on the Catholic Herald newspaper’s use of ...
Malaysian Christians have long referred to Jesus as the "son of Allah." Their government, it seems, has a problem with that:
Malaysian Christians have long referred to Jesus as the "son of Allah." Their government, it seems, has a problem with that:
Malaysian Muslim activists and officials and they see using the word Allah in Christian publications including bibles as attempts to proselytize.
Those concerns led to the ban on the Catholic Herald newspaper’s use of "Allah" to denote God. The Herald is now suing the government to overturn the ruling, made after it appeared the paper would be allowed to use "Allah" provided it stamped "For Christians" on the front page of the paper.
"Allowing Christians to use the word is dangerous because it’s attacking the sole religion of the Malays," said Yusri Mohamad, president of the influential Muslim Youth Movement.
"We have to question Christians’ motive for wanting to use this obviously Muslim word. It appears to be for conversions. All Muslim Malays in Malaysia are against this."
Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating
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